


Prompt: Intensity

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [26]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Found by Coulson, Codependency, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s May who spots them and they know from the barrage of cursewords they hear over comms that something definitely unexpected and possibly bad has happened. When she finally stops swearing it is to say, simply, “Coulson. Bahrain.” and Phil is off. </p><p>They’d not expected to be told something was happening in Sokovia, in Novi Grad. They’d not expected to get into the base so easily, they’d not expected to find what turned out to be, somehow, <i>HYDRA</i>, and they most certainly did not expect what they saw through the windows. </p><p>There was a girl in one, possibly a young woman, scarlet clear even when it thinned from coils that looked like blood as she lifted wooden blocks and made them dance around her cell. In the other was a silver blur, occasionally pausing into a young man, quaking so fast he was still blurring at the edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Intensity

**Author's Note:**

> For reasons of Plot I am having Coulson and Co. finding the twins about two days after they are experimented on with the sceptre, which, according to the [timeline](http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/2014) would be around the 2nd of April, the day before HYDRA reveals itself within S.H.I.E.L.D.. Factoring in time differences between continental Europe and America, Coulson would not have heard of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall (on the 4th of April) until well after finding the twins. I’m also bending the interactions Coulson and Co. have with Garrett to be predominantly over communications devices rather than in person, and Ward going to Garrett under Phil’s orders “to keep an eye on things”, while Coulson’s team get Triplett. This was the only way I could figure to write this because present canon for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is too fucking confusing.
> 
> This was originally written for a prompt over on my tumblr, [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/136550925400/prompt-team-coulson-are-the-ones-that-find-the).

* * *

 

 **i.**  
It’s May who spots them and they know from the barrage of cursewords they hear over comms that something definitely unexpected and possibly bad has happened. When she finally stops swearing it is to say, simply, “Coulson. Bahrain.” and Phil is off. 

They’d not expected to be told something was happening in Sokovia, in Novi Grad. They’d not expected to get into the base so easily, they’d not expected to find what turned out to be, somehow, _HYDRA_ , and they most certainly did not expect what they saw through the windows. 

There was a girl in one, possibly a young woman, scarlet clear even when it thinned from coils that looked like blood as she lifted wooden blocks and made them dance around her cell. In the other was a silver blur, occasionally pausing into a young man, quaking so fast he was still blurring at the edges.

“I told you,” May says. “It’s like Bahrain all over again.”

“No it’s not,” Phil says. “They aren't trying to kill us, for one.”

The look May gives him tells him just how much she trusts _that_  assessment.

Then FitzSimmons tell them they’ve found the sceptre and things begin to spiral.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
“Triplett’s on the stick-” May starts, rapidly followed by “No,” as she spots Phil watching FitzSimmons gently herding the two subjects ahead of them onto the Bus, towards the Cage. “No, Phil, you can’t be serious.”

Phil shrugs. “I’ve got a good feeling about them,” he says. “Besides, they need help.”

“We’re dropping them at the Triskelion,” May says. “ _With_  the sceptre. They’re better able to handle enhanced individuals.” Phil looks to where the two had vanished into the main body of the Bus. “ _Phil_ ,” May says and she is beginning to sound exasperated. “You can’t keep bringing in strays.”

“Trial basis,” he offers. “If we can help them control their powers, we start them on a training course.”

May’s eyebrows have been rising as he speaks and her disbelief is clear. “We don’t even know if they’d _want_  to join S.H.I.E.L.D.”

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
When Phil gets to the Cage the two are curled around each other on the bench. They’re still in the grey clothes they were in when they’d found them, but haven’t touched the blankets FitzSimmons have left, in an attempt to make the Cage more homely.

“Hey,” he says, and takes a seat across the room from them. “I’m Agent Phil Coulson, with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The boy looks puzzled. “They said they were S.H.I.E.L.D.. When they offered to give us powers, they said they were S.H.I.E.L.D..”

Phil frowns, shakes his head. “Strucker was, and List, but that base wasn’t given permission for human testing, and hadn’t filed the paperwork for finding volunteers. Our intel indicated they’d been taken over by HYDRA.”

The two look puzzled, the boy’s fingers stilling where they had been combing through the girl’s hair. “HYDRA?” the boy asks.

“Supposed to be gone,” Phil says. “Nazi deep science division, destroyed by Captain America in the second world war.”

The girl’s fingers clench around the boy’s arms, and murmurs something to him in what he assumes is Sokovian. The boy shakes his head, the girl tugs the sleeve of his shirt, and Phil simply watches. There is a curious intensity to their conversation, the boy watching the girl closely but not rudely, the girl watching the boy like every word they share is important. Eventually the discussion pauses, the two looking to Phil warily.

“You’re telling the truth,” the girl says, and it is a statement and not a question. 

Phil makes a mental note to have FitzSimmons more fully analyse the pair’s capabilities.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
“Do we have files on them?” Phil asks, and Fitz whirls around from where he’s calibrating whatever machine it is is taking readings from the sceptre.

“Some,” he says. “Skye’s looking through them now, most of them are encrypted. Non-standard encryption.” There’s a second’s pause as he guesses Phil’s next question. “Jemma’s got the biological samples.”

Simmons is already speaking as he heads over to her side of the lab, babbling on about shifting DNA strands between samples and Tesseract energy compared to Sceptre energy, and Phil waits for a pause before gently asking, “Simple version?”

“Right,” Simmons says, and she’s wearing the enraptured grin she has when she’s just found something new and fascinating. “This,” she points to one microscope, “is their cells before the experiments. Pretty normal, average amounts of junk DNA, normal RNA, mitochondria, everything - though they’re related according to the RNA, likely the same mother.” 

Phil looks at her, the glance they’ve figured out to mark when Fitz or Simmons are going off on tangents and Jemma points towards the second microscope. She is, Phil notices, still smiling but rather more confusedly. “ _This_ , is their DNA afterwards. Some of the junk DNA is switched on, some strands have that energy around it - its _almost_  like Tesseract energy, but closer to the sceptre - and there’s a few bits in their RNA which is...” Jemma pauses, sets her gloved hands down on the workbench. “Honestly, sir, I don’t know what it is. Its different but I have no idea how.”

“Good job,” Phil says, and gently claps her shoulder. “I’ll go and see what Skye’s got from the files.”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Skye, it turns out, has got rather a lot from the files. “Their encryption is _terrible_ ,” she says. “They’d managed to delete some files - I’ll go through see if I can piece them together later - but everything else is there. Those two” - she gestures towards the Cage - “are the only survivors of about thirty or forty 'volunteers’. He has superspeed, and uh,” she glances to the tablet on her lap, “‘ _increased metabolism and improved homeostasis_ ’, whatever that means. She’s got,” Skye glances to the tablet again, “‘ _neuro-electric interfacing, telekinesis and mental manipulation_ ’.” She looks up at Phil. “Want me to send this to FitzSimmons?”

“Please,” Phil says. “But I think I get the gist.”

May catches him as he heads to the Cage. “She’s a telepath,” she says. “That’s what ‘neuro-electric interfacing and metal manipulation’ translate to.” It’s a statement not a question but Phil nods. “And you’re going back into the Cage with them?”

“I trust you to shoot me if I stop acting like myself.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
In the Cage the two are whispering to each other. Low voices, and the language from before, that Phil is more certain in calling Sokovian. Occasionally he hears pieces of German, fragments of Serbian and Russian, but for the most part it seems to be the language from before. The two don’t stop as he takes his seat opposite them, but eventually fall silent after the girl says something firmly. The boy presses a kiss to her hair, and they look toward Phil. 

They still have that odd intensity, a wary watchfulness which seems to miss nothing. It’s like, Phil thinks, being in a room with Romanoff and Fury and no one else, and it’d make his skin crawl if he wasn’t as used to it as he was.

“My team’s been putting together what they can about you,” he says, “But HYDRA managed to delete many of the files, and it’ll take some time to piece them together.” He gestures slightly, hands open and towards them. “Will you help us fill in the gaps?”

The boy watches, the girl bites her lip, taps her fingertips over the boy’s arm. “We will,” she says eventually. “If we may have new clothes, and food, and _showers_.”

Phil cannot help his smile. 

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Washed and in new clothes, the two sit closely side-by side at a table, boy wolfing down food, one hand on the girl’s back as she slowly drinks down soup. Skye is watching them, absently tapping at her tablet with one hand, when Phil goes to sit with them.

“Better?” he says, and the boy nods.

“Much,” the girl says, pushing hair back behind her ears. “You have questions?”

“Many,” Phil says. “Shall we start?”

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Almost everything the two tell them matches to what they find in HYDRA’s files or to verifiable sources, and where it doesn’t it seems honest enough. The two are, they say, twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, born and raised in Sokovia, and orphaned by a Stark Industries shell when they were ten. There is a kind of hate in the boy’s - Pietro’s - eyes, when Stark is mentioned, and the girl’s - Wanda’s - glow with the scarlet she can make dance from her fingertips.

“Do you know how many other volunteers there were?” Phil asks, and the boy shrugs.

“Seventy-three,” the girl answers, a touch of scarlet in her eyes, an odd certainty in her tone. “In total. There were twenty-six in our group.” The boy glances to his sister, and Phil thinks he had not been aware of this.

“Did any of them-?” 

The girl shakes her head. “Strucker thought it, when he would come to see us. That at least we lived and had powers, when everyone else was dead.” The boy’s hand rubs her shoulder, and she leans into him, tucking herself under his chin.

“And training?” Phil asks. “Have you had any?”

They both shrug. “Some,” the girl says. “They would not let me touch minds, but they had me practice with blocks.”

“Treadmills,” the boy says. “I broke twelve.”

Phil nods. “We can help, if you’d like. We don’t have many enhanced people in S.H.I.E.L.D., but we’ve run into a fair few over the years.”

The boy looks down to the girl, murmurs something in Sokovian and she nods, replies in English. “We can trust them,” she says, and squeezes his hand. “It will help, Pietro.” The boy relaxes at her touch, at her words, and looks at Phil, blue eyes still intense in that odd way the twins seem to have.

“If you can help,” he says, “And we do not have to meet Stark.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
